


Liquid Courage

by corngold



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, hints of unrequited Sherlock/John, pretty much pwp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-12-15 03:39:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/844873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corngold/pseuds/corngold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during series 1.  In the face of a jealous but stubbornly celibate Sherlock, John decides to drown his sorrows.  He really has only the best of intentions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Liquid Courage

**Author's Note:**

> In which Sherlock has been picking fights, John gets pissed, and Mycroft wears expensive cologne.

John knows that heading out alone with the sole purpose of getting pissed is a bad idea. He takes the stairs two at a time, pulls on his jacket and steps out into the street.  He slams the door behind him and is conscious, just for a moment, of his flatmate still curled in a resentful ball on the sofa. He pauses on the pavement and shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath, wonders if he's being an idiot.  If he shouldn’t go back inside.  
  


  
Two hours later he sits slumped over a bar, nursing his eighth drink and trying not to imagine all the things which might have happened if he’d turned around then, instead of shoving Sherlock resolutely out of his mind and searching for a pub in which to drown his many problems.  
  
“You got a ride, then?”  
  
John drags his head up and stares bleary-eyed at the barman.  
  
“Think that ought to be your last," the man says.  
  
“Right,” John mumbles, reaching for his wallet. It seems awfully far away. He tries to focus, and tries again. His hand misses his pocket by a mile and knocks into someone else instead.  
  
“How much?” asks the man he’s inadvertently thwacked. The voice is smooth, precise, and very familiar. John groans and drops his head onto his arm. He can smell spilled beer gone stale, and sweat, and wood soap, the scents all swimming round in his head like oil. Before he can wish the floor might open and swallow him, barstool and all, Mycroft Holmes has paid the bill and taken his arm in a restrained sort of way. John makes a muffled noise of protest and doesn’t move.  
  
“Really, Doctor Watson.” The voice is all false friendliness and steel, every syllable a threat. “Come.”  
  
John had stood in front of this man, as the elder Holmes stared him down, and had told him, “You don’t seem very frightening.” He tries desperately to remember that feeling as the rest of his body obeys the command, sliding off the barstool and half onto his unexpected keeper before he can catch himself. Mycroft, half a foot taller, barely stumbles. He does, in taking a firmer grip, shove John both straighter up and further from his own immaculately kept self. John can picture the look of distaste which must be gracing his features as he manhandles a drunk out of a bar, as delicately as possible. John tries to imagine even a spot of grime gracing one of Mycroft’s three piece suits and fails.  
  


  
The air outside is cold and sobers him up enough to realise he is in loads of trouble and much too drunk yet to do anything about it. He curses quietly as he leans against the brick wall, trying to pull himself together. The best his mind can manage is reminding him, a little hysterically, that Mycroft is powerful and while his manner can be subtle, his methods are most decidedly not, and the last thing John needs is to be intoxicated with his immediate future in the man’s hands.  
  
“Come, John,” Mycroft commands. He’d released his grip on John’s arm when they’d reached the street, but remains only a step away. The familiar sleek car sits idling at the kerb. Red and gold lights gleam off the wet pavement and their breaths hang in the air.  
  
John cracks an eye open to assess his position. The wall is providing adequate support, but he has a suspicion that the moment he steps away, his legs will start to wobble—too much to get him all the way back to Baker Street under his own power. Not to mention that if the world spins much more, he’ll lose track of it.  
  
Which leaves getting a cab, or getting home under Mycroft’s power. He scans the streets. No cabs.  
  
“John.”  
  
“I’m fine, honestly.” He wills it to be true.  
  
The hand closes back around his arm and begins to pull him away from the wall.  
  
“Can’t a fellow drink in peace?”  
  
Mycroft practically radiates sarcastic disapproval. The driver of the sleek car emerges and opens the back door. John gathers his wits and makes a final, concerted effort to break free. Mycroft’s fingers dig into his arm.  
  
“Really, John.”  
  
“I’m fine.”  
  
“You’re hideously intoxicated. Get in.”  
  
“I’m fine. I can walk home.”  
  
“In. Now.” His actions match the command, and John finds himself being forced forward. The fight is clearing his head, but not quickly enough to render him actually capable. With bad grace, he gives in and stumbles the last two feet into the car. Mycroft climbs in behind him and shuts the door, and with a purr the car pulls into the street. With the sudden movement his stomach threatens to turn inside out, and he hunches forward and groans. Pain is building up behind his eyes and in his temples like a storm.  
  
“God, let me out, I’m going to be sick,” he says through clenched teeth.  
  
Mycroft hands him a paper bag.  The car does not stop.  John crumples the bag in disgust and lets it drift to the floor.  
  
“This is kidnapping,” he points out. His kidnapper doesn't bother to reply.  
  
 _He_ is _the government_ , John remembers Sherlock saying. His resentment climbs another notch.  
  
Then Mycroft’s fingers touch the back of his neck and press in very precisely under the base of his skull, and John turns to jelly as the pain vanishes. Mycroft works his way gently down the cervical spine, then moves a hand to each shoulder, pulling John upright and back against the seat. With the loss of his fingers, the headache is slowly growing back, and John grimaces. Mycroft reinserts his hand between John’s neck and the seat and begins again. John shuts his eyes and slips into a semi-doze.  
  
“What, exactly, is the nature of the relationship between you and my brother?”  
  
John stiffens and pulls away, pausing a moment when his head swims.  
  
“Let me out.”  
  
“John.”  
  
“Let me out, Mycroft.”  
  
“Dr Watson.”  
  
“Mr Holmes?” John glares at him. Mycroft’s expression is one part dangerous, one part annoyed. “Let me out. Now.”  
  
Mycroft raises a knuckle to tap on the glass, and the car pulls smoothly to the kerb and stops. John is out as fast as he can manage, with his hands fumbling slightly at the door handle.  
  
Only when the car has pulled away does he realise Mycroft has gotten out with him.  
  
He turns his back resolutely and picks a direction. He doesn’t make it three steps before he's hopelessly dizzy. He reaches out a hand for the nearest lamppost and watches it jump away from him, watches the ground race toward his face.  
  
He can’t manage a protest when Mycroft catches his arm for the third time that night and pulls him gently upright.  
  
“Your eyes are unfocused, your headache has obviously returned, your limp is pronounced, and your ability to walk in a straight line has vanished, along with your sense of direction. Baker Street is the other way. Now allow me to assist you, please. Or shall I call for the car to return?”  
  
John gives in without a word, leaning heavily on the elder Holmes’s arm as they walk and wishing he were curled up in a miserable ball in bed. Or throwing up in the bathroom. Or even standing in the sitting room, still shouting at Sherlock.  
  
Oh god, Sherlock.  
  
He stops walking.  
  
“John.” Mycroft’s voice is steely.  He is nearing the ends of his patience.  
  
“I can’t go back to Baker Street. I can’t.”  
  
He knows it is foolish, but after their argument, the last thing he wants is to return, completely plastered and under the care of Sherlock’s elder brother. Running away to sober up is a pitiful enough prospect.  He knows Sherlock will take one look at him and know exactly what has happened, whether he goes back now or in twelve hours. But at least in the morning he might actually feel up to dealing with it.  
  
“Don’t be foolish.”  
  
“Anywhere else. My old flat.”  
  
“Your old flat is the other side of London, and rented out to new tenants.”  
  
“Damn it,” John mutters, and sinks toward the ground. Mycroft’s grip tightens to keep him standing, and John stumbles forward instead, into his chest. Mycroft’s other arm goes around his back to keep him from dragging them both down to the pavement in a heap. His fingers dig through John’s jacket and into his shoulder blade. John presses his forehead against Mycroft’s sternum and tries to think of anyone who could put a roof over his head for the night and offer him gallons of coffee in the morning.  
  
“Lestrade?” he asks.  
  
“Working a case,” Mycroft answers promptly. “Baker Street, John.”  
  
 Harry is out of the question. If he were to show up on her doorstep, utterly sloshed, he’d never, ever, hear the end of it.  John swears again, more colourfully.  
  
“ _Baker Street_ , John,” Mycroft repeats.  
  
“I can’t; I won’t go back there like this.”  
  
“Because you’ll prove Sherlock right? Rather late to avoid that now, isn’t it?” He sounds amused.  
  
“Piss off,” John says, into his waistcoat. He realises blearily that his own fingers are wrapped around the left lapel of Mycroft’s oversized suit. Mycroft’s are still digging painfully into his left arm and right scapula. The pressure is nice: it alleviates his headache, distracts him from the way the world is still swimming gently around them like ink. Mycroft’s cologne is understated and pleasant.  
  
“John.” His tone is sharp.  
  
“You. You must have somewhere.”  
  
“John.”  
  
John lifts his head and licks his lips, trying to gather the feeble remains of his brain into functioning coherency. Mycroft is staring down at him, eyes utterly black in the night. John leans up and presses a kiss to Mycroft’s neck, under his jaw. Mycroft’s head tilts and he hisses and his left hand fists in John’s jacket. Then he’s pushing John away, putting distance between them. John staggers, but Mycroft retains his grip on John’s arm, and they both remain standing.  
  
“Sorry,” John says, confused.  
  
“I’ll call the car.”  
  
John frowns. Mycroft reaches into a pocket for his mobile. His hands are graceful. John’s head hurts.  
  
The car pulls up less than a minute later, and Mycroft helps John back in and climbs in beside him. John spends the ride with his head in his hands, and this time Mycroft does not touch him.  
  
“It’s Sarah,” John says suddenly, wanting to have it out, hoping that Mycroft will make sense of it, tell him what it means, give him some kind of direction in navigating the twists and turns of his brother’s brain. “It’s something to do with Sarah, and...and being human, and when I’m human around her. It doesn’t make sense. He doesn’t make sense.”  
  
Mycroft turns and looks out the window, face utterly unreadable. He offers no advice, makes no sense of John’s explanation. But, John supposes, his explanation couldn't have made much sense anyway.


	2. Uneven Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which John is embarrassed, Mycroft is unusually sensitive, and Sherlock has been making tea.

John has not been looking forward to his next meeting with Mycroft. In fact he’s spent the last week trying desperately not to agonise over it. Life at Baker Street has evened out, though Sherlock watches John more often and more sharply than he had before, if possible. John has been ignoring it as best he can.

  
  
He's browsing half-heartedly in a second-hand bookstore when his phone bleeps. He retrieves it from his pocket and the screen lights up.  
  
 _A word, if you wouldn’t mind._  
 _MH_  
  
John looks at it for a long moment, then slips it back into his pocket. He goes back to the book and ten seconds pass before he realises he’s been staring into space. Out comes the phone again and he pulls up the text, frowns at it. A moment later another pops up to take its place.  
  
 _Outside, if you please, John._  
 _MH_  
  
He starts and looks up and out the window before he can stop himself. The sleek black car idles not five feet beyond the door. John wonders whether Mycroft doesn’t understand the concept of blending in, or just doesn’t give a toss. He forces himself to put the book back on the shelf and his feet to take him out of the shop and up to the car. The door opens and he climbs in.  
  
“John,” says Mycroft evenly, a polite smile almost making its way to his eyes. “How are you?”  
  
“I was reading,” he says, before he can stop himself, and then makes an effort to control himself. “I’m fine. Very well,” he adds more steadily.  
  
“Excellent.”  
  
The ensuing silence isn’t particularly comfortable.

  
  
 _Mycroft had seen John to the door of 221 and no further; the driver had left the engine idling and assisted John up the stairs to number B. Mycroft had remained in the car._  
  
 _Sherlock seemed not to have moved since John left, three hours earlier. He lay on the sofa with his back determinedly facing the door, but the tension running through him had been obvious—even to John, in his inebriated state._  
  
 _The driver had deposited him in a chair and touched his cap at Sherlock, who’d of course had no way of seeing it, and left, shutting the door behind him. The window had been open. John had heard the car pull away and fade into the streets._  
  
 _He leaned back and contemplated his options._  
  
 _Stumble up the rest of the stairs to his room. Have it out with Sherlock. Wait for Sherlock to say something first. He had still been reviewing the choices when he'd passed out._

  
  
“And how is my brother?”  
  
“Fine.”  
  
Mycroft raises an expressive eyebrow. “You can do better than that, John.”  
  
“I don’t particularly want to.”  
  
He hasn’t felt this antagonistic toward Mycroft since their first meeting in the empty warehouse, but the memory of their last encounter has him on edge. Which he is resolved not to think about, because if he does, he’ll die of embarrassment.

  
  
 _The next morning John had woken to an an utterly foul taste in his mouth and a headache triple what it had been in Mycroft’s car the night before. He had groaned and sat up. The room was empty. A cup of tea sat at his side. He’d stared blearily at it._  
  
 _Sherlock? Tea?_  
  
 _Knowing the state of their kitchen, John hadn’t been sure how safe this cup of tea might be. He knew Sherlock had an assortment of nefarious flora about the place, as well as the pieces of fauna he brought back regularly, in various states of decay. Might Sherlock have accidentally substituted belladonna leaves for tea? Had he even washed the cup since its last use? And had this been the cup containing the frog intestines, or just the rancid cocoa?_  
  
 _But the gesture was surprising. Surprisingly sweet._  
  
 _There had been no sign of Sherlock anywhere in the apartment. A blanket rested across John’s knees. He’d reached forward and sniffed hesitantly at the tea. It smelled fine. He’d braced himself and taken a sip._  
  
 _It was cold. He'd sighed, shut his eyes, and gone back to sleep._

  
“You had a reason for dragging me out of there, surely?”  
  
“John.”  
  
John’s noticed how often Mycroft uses his name. More often than people are wont to do, in normal life, in normal conversation, and he’s noticed the varied inflections with which Mycroft can lace the single syllable. The way it slips off his tongue like silk, the way the J is slightly overly pronounced, the way the n often lilts up at the end. He’s noticed the way it can speak volumes of Mycroft’s moods and opinions, the way it makes John uncomfortable or wary or annoyed or afraid.  
  
He notices now the way it makes his heart rate pick up.  
  
He looks away, stares straight ahead, and swallows. He hopes Mycroft doesn’t notice it.

  
  
 _“Any particular reason he didn’t want to come up?”_  
  
 _“I’m sorry?”_  
  
 _“Mycroft, last night, when he saw you home.”_  
  
 _John had stared at Sherlock. Sherlock had stared nonchalantly at the computer screen in front of him._  
  
 _“Do I even want to bother asking how you knew?”_  
  
 _His flatmate had shrugged. “Probably not.” John had shaken his head and gone back to his dinner. Sherlock had been silent for a moment, before continuing, “He collected you from the pub himself. Walked you out to the car and steadied you when you couldn't stand on your own. Why, then, wait in the car? Mycroft likes to see things through.”_  
  
 _John had felt his face going steadily pink. Sherlock’s eyes had been trained on him at that point, taking the previous evening apart piece by piece._  
  
 _“Dunno,” John had answered casually._

  
  
Mycroft is watching him steadily, so of course he notices. “I’d rather thought it was a drunken impulse, nothing more,” he says mildly.  
  
“Yes, well. I was very drunk.” John says through clenched teeth, blushing again. Mycroft’s eyes are boring into him. _Damn the Holmes brothers anyway_ , he thinks, as his pulse quickens even further under the scrutiny.  
  
“You hadn’t shown any interest in me before.”  
  
He remembers the way Mycroft had hissed at the touch of John's lips on his throat.  “Nor you me,” John answers, pleased beyond all proportion that his voice is perfectly steady.  
  
Mycroft dips his head briefly in acknowledgement and looks out the window for a moment. His umbrella leans up against the door. His suit is expensive and, like many of his suits, loose on him. John wonders idly if he’s wearing the same cologne. Then he looks out his own window and curses himself for an idiot.

  
 _The moment it had come out of his mouth he’d known it was fruitless. No one could hope to profess ignorance in front of Sherlock and avoid being forcibly enlightened.  Sherlock sat up and started in with a vengeance._  
  
 _“There were small particles of very fine wool under the fingernails of your left hand—you were quite drunk, drunk enough to need assistance, not only to need his hand under your elbow, but to cling to his arm yourself. The back of your jacket is mussed, wrinkled, as though he grabbed hold of you—to keep you up? But the indentations there are of a left hand, and Mycroft is right handed—he wouldn’t have reached to catch you with his left, and he’s far too capable to resort to making a wild grasp for the back of your jacket, had you been falling. There are faint bruises showing on your left arm—yes, that’s where he caught you, and he must have, you must have been falling for him to hold tightly enough to bruise._  
  
 _“Your jacket, though. His arm must have been around you, his hand on your back, to make that pattern. Your shirt smelled faintly of him, as did your hair—he was holding you. Was he carrying you? Your breath reeked of alcohol last night, it’s fair enough to suppose you might have been as incapable of balance as that, but the wool under your fingernails means you had some degree of coordination and strength. You must have been trying to get away—”_  
  
 _John stared back at Sherlock, feeling doom impending._  
  
 _“—stubbornly clinging to your autonomy, but he managed to convince you to come back in his care.  Why, if he’d gone through the, and I must say, very atypical trouble of looking after you yesterday evening, would he have left your final delivery to the flat in the hands of his driver?  As I said, Mycroft likes to see things through.”_  
  
 _He'd had to look away; a moment longer and Sherlock would guess. Would see it written somewhere in his face._  
  
 _“Something happened. Something between catching your fall and dropping you off here.”_  
  
 _Sherlock’s eyes had been so pale in his already pale face. He looked like an illusion, thin and transparent as wax paper._  
  
 _He’d taken John apart as though he were nothing stronger than tissue_.

  
“How is Sarah?” Mycroft asks, and John jumps at the unexpectedness of it.  
  
“Fine, I think.”  
  
“You haven't seen her lately?”  
  
“Not since...that night.”  
  
“I see. And how is Sherlock?”  
  
“I told you, he’s fine—ah. You mean, because I said—” John falters a bit. “Because I said the fight was something to do with her.”  
  
“Which it was, was it not?”  
  
“Yes.” John clears his throat. “He seems—happy enough. Same old Sherlock.” There’s a pause. “He’s started making tea.”  
  
“Heavens, what is the world coming to?” Mycroft asks dryly. “You may make a domestic out of him yet. It’s been a pleasure, John.”  
  
The car pulls over smoothly and stops. John blinks in surprise, and then reaches for the door handle. It is not until it is shut behind him and he watches the car drive away that their stilted conversation rearranges itself, fills in the gaps, and falls into place.  
  
If Mycroft is correct in what he evidently believes, well. John has a few things he needs to discuss with Sherlock.  
  
He sits down on the bench outside the second-hand bookstore and watches the traffic pass without seeing it. Instead he sees Sherlock’s pale eyes staring back at his, pictures the abrupt, brilliant smile that sometimes breaks across his features when John compliments him. Pictures the way it lights up his face.  
  
Unbidden, the memory of Mycroft’s cologne comes to him. Things, he realises with a sigh, can never just be simple.


	3. Sparklers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sherlock is celibate, John is randy, and Mycroft is demanding.

Life hasn't been easy lately. Things with Sarah have petered out, and John isn't sure whether he or Sherlock deserves more of the blame for that.  
  
He isn't really sure of anything when it comes to Sherlock.  His odd conversation with Mycroft had led him to believe there might be a rational, human motivation behind his flatmate's behaviour.  But there have since followed two weeks of...John can't for the life of him tell what. Sherlock watches him constantly, as though trying to make up his mind to something. They haven't had a single argument since the one that sent John out into the night, seeking a pub. Sherlock has been cheerful, happy. Easy-going, even. The thing his mind keeps coming back to, whenever he seems close either to finding an explanation or throwing up his hands and forgetting all about it, is that _Sherlock keeps making him tea_.  
  


  
Yes, Sherlock had obviously been jealous of John’s romantic relationship with Sarah. But if he was also jealous of John’s physical relationship with her, well. He doesn't seem interested in taking her place now; he seems perfectly content to continue on in domestic and celibate bliss.  
  
 _Everything else is transport_ , Sherlock said once. But John hasn't gotten a lay in near two years. If Sherlock is content to store eyes in the microwave and feet in the bathtub, to shoot holes in the wall and hack into John’s computer and make them tea, he is welcome to it. If John doesn't get a good shag soon, he’ll bloody go out of his mind.  
  
  
  
It is now painfully obvious that John should not get drunk around Mycroft.  
  


  
This time he has been sitting on the barstool only half an hour before the familiar figure ambles up and says, “We both know this might not be the wisest idea, John.”  
  
He doesn't even bother arguing; he’s already had enough, in the thirty minutes he’s been sitting there, to make him near tipsy. He pays and follows Mycroft out like a stray puppy.  
  
Mycroft takes him back to Baker Street, and this time comes up with him. John feels relaxed, easy. His head is fizzing but the world is smooth at the edges. Their rooms are empty; a text on John’s phone, which he’d left on the table, tells him Sherlock has gone down to Scotland Yard.  
  
Mycroft settles into John’s chair, which he seems to feel is his, and looks so utterly at ease there that John, blood humming from the alcohol, has sudden difficulty thinking of anything but the fact that it has been a bloody long time since he’s gotten it off with anyone. Mycroft meets his eyes, then goes very still.  
  
He stands abruptly.  
  
“Sorry.”  John's voice is husky, and he isn't sure whether it's the right thing to say, when all he is apologising for is a thought.  But then, the Holmes brothers have always seemed mind-readers. “Don’t go.”  
  
“John.”  
  
John takes a step forward and puts a hand on Mycroft’s, slowly working the umbrella out of his grip and dropping it on the chair his guest has just vacated. He looks up into Mycroft’s eyes and wets his lips, unsure, and suddenly Mycroft is shoving John backwards, eyes wild. John’s back hits the door and Mycroft’s mouth is on his, tongue fighting its way between John’s lips, and in an instant John has a nasty crick in his neck and a raging hard-on.  
  
“Christ,” he gasps when Mycroft finally breaks away for air. Mycroft makes a growl that goes straight to John’s groin before swooping down again. John tugs open the buttons of his waistcoat as he pants around the kiss, and one of Mycroft’s hands drops to the waistband of John’s jeans, pushes under his jumper and slides up his back.  
  
John shivers and breaks away to pull the jumper over his head; Mycroft is back on him an instant later, hands grasping at John’s ribs, sliding up to palm the back of his neck, moving to the front to undo the buttons of his shirt, drifting down to the fastening of his jeans. John shoves the coat and waistcoat off Mycroft’s shoulders in one movement.  
  
It is bloody difficult to take control of a kiss when his partner is a head taller than he. John puts his hands to Mycroft’s chest and pushes until Mycroft’s legs hit the sofa and he collapses onto it. John climbs into his lap, knees to either side of Mycroft’s hips, sitting up to kiss him and grinding down when it seems Mycroft is trying to take over again. The fingers on his back dig in sharply as Mycroft gasps, and then he is reaching for the fastening of John’s trousers again, this time with serious intent.  
  
John’s mobile rings.  
  
“Fuck,” he mutters. Mycroft bites John’s lip gently, and John swears again and presses a hand against Mycroft’s crotch. In a second Mycroft has twisted and flipped John onto his back along the sofa, propping himself up with one hand while the other tugs at his jeans. John pulls the last of Mycroft’s shirt buttons undone and slides his arms inside, under his vest and around his waist, bringing Mycroft down on top of him. His mouth finds Mycroft’s neck as he thrusts his hips up, and Mycroft’s hand, caught between them, clenches around him almost involuntarily. John bites down with a muffled grunt on the skin he’s been mouthing, and the noise Mycroft makes is almost obscene.  Their legs are a hopeless tangle, John’s jeans somewhere around his knees because his shoes are still on, and the sounds Mycroft is making, sounds that are something between groans and keens, are so intensely satisfying that he can't bring himself to move his mouth from Mycroft’s throat. Instead he moves farther along the pulse, pausing when he finds a particularly sensitive spot and worrying it with tongue and teeth until suddenly Mycroft curses and one of his fingers is pushing into John, painful and insistent and fantastic and John has to break off, has to throw his head back and gasp for air that has vanished from his lungs. The world narrows to that one place of bright, vivid pressure, and he barely feels Mycroft press a soft kiss to his open mouth.  
  
“Sh, John,” Mycroft breathes. “Relax now; let me have you.”  
  
Air rushes back into his lungs and he pants. It is so fucking hard because it had been so fucking long, but _fuck_ does he ever want this, _fuck_ —  
  
“God yes,” he gets out, and opens his eyes to see a smile on Mycroft’s face that is utterly terrifying and utterly arousing. “Fuck,” he whispers aloud this time, and the smile grows. Mycroft’s eyes are predatory.  
  
“That’s the idea,” he says.  
  


  
John doesn't know what he might have expected of Mycroft afterwards, had he thought about it beforehand. He hadn’t expected them to lie quietly for a few minutes, Mycroft still half on top of him because they hadn't, in the end, made it upstairs to John’s bedroom and really, John is much too old to be shagging on the sofa because he was too caught up in the moment to suggest they move to a more comfortable location.  
  
He might have expected Mycroft to vanish into the night while John slept. Whether or not he’d planned to do so, John isn't asleep, so it isn't as though he can. They lie together in companionable silence instead, Mycroft still mostly dressed, John in his shirt and vest, and one sock still half on his foot.  
  
And then finally Mycroft shifts, and presses a gentle, chaste kiss to John’s lips, and sits up. John follows suit, letting out a muffled grunt when the movement sends a pleasant, yet uncomfortable, ache through his backside. Mycroft stands and retrieves his jacket from its crumpled pile on the floor, pulling his phone from the inner pocket. John stretches and reaches for his jeans, pulling them on and ignoring his pants. His pants will definitely need washing. The other sock is lost somewhere in the vast dark under the sofa, and John doesn't feel up to kneeling and hunting around for it.  
  
Mycroft is texting. John remembers Sherlock saying _Mycroft never texts when he can talk_ , and wonders whether he texts now because he simply doesn't feel like talking, or because he doesn't want John to hear what he has to say.  
  
Mycroft tosses the jacket over the back of John’s chair and turns.  
  
“Might I make use of your shower?”  
  
“’Course; go ahead,” he answers, trying to work the crick out of his neck. Mycroft nods vague thanks and disappears. Five minutes later there is a knock on the door and John opens it to find a smartly dressed man holding a briefcase. The man touches his cap.  
  
“Dr Watson.”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“For Mr Holmes.” He holds up the briefcase.  
  
“Ah. Thanks, yes, he’s—you can just set it in here, I suppose.” John is abruptly aware of Mycroft’s waistcoat still in a crumpled heap on the floor, of his suit jacket and umbrella lying across the chair. Of the fact that John probably looks very thoroughly shagged.  He blushes. The man, whom he has recognised as Mycroft’s driver, sets the case next to the umbrella and gathers the jacket and waistcoat.  
  
“The rest, sir?” he asks, expressionlessly.  
  
“Bathroom.” John points the way. The man reclaims the briefcase and disappears after Mycroft, returning a few moments later with more distinctly rumpled clothes added to his collection. He touches his cap again and is gone.  
  
Mycroft emerges not two minutes later, fresh clothing immaculate, hair still damp. John isn't sure whether he ought to feel awkward.  
  
“Give my love to Sherlock.”  Mycroft's tone is pleasant. At John’s raised eyebrows, he says, “He’ll know I was here,”  and at John’s increasingly horrified expression, adds, “And yes, no doubt he’ll know why.”  
  
“Hell,” John mutters, rubbing at his sore neck and staring at the floor awkwardly. There is a brief moment in which they stand there, silently.  Then Mycroft crosses the floor to John, stares into his eyes a moment, and bends to press another, warmer, kiss to John’s lips. After a moment John kisses back.  
  
“Thank you,” John says when he pulls away, and it manages somehow not to sound imbecilic.  
  
“Thank _you_ ,” Mycroft replies with perfect sincerity, and picks up his umbrella, and leaves.  
  
John hears his footsteps down the stairs, hears the door shut behind him, hears the car pull away into the street. He moves across the room to his phone. He unlocks it and stares at the missed call. Lestrade. There is a text as well, sent after John had failed to answer his phone. He pulls it up.  
  
 _Sherlock says: “Paris lovely this time of year, & tell John to mind the intestine in the freezer.” I don’t envy you your flatmate, you know. Can you come down to the station in the morning? – Lestrade_  
  
John sits and drops his head into his hands.


	4. Calm Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brief interlude in which Lestrade is an oblivious dear, John panics, and the Holmes brothers send texts.

"Did he say anything? Anything else?”  
  
Lestrade, riffling through his desk drawers, snorts. “Does he ever say anything? Just took off, like he always does.”  
  
John never argues, when Lestrade or his team are in the mood to grumble about Sherlock. They’re usually right, and Lestrade’s grumbling tends to hold a note of affection, under all the exasperation. Sometimes John wonders exactly how they met. Where the drugs fit in and what stopped them and where the affection comes from. Whether Sherlock even realises it’s there.  
  
At the moment he's got other things on his mind.  He stands with his hands in his pockets, wearing his best bland expression and trying not to look as awkward as he feels. A glance around the station shows everyone busy with their own business—only Sherlock’s presence draws nosy glances from the Force—but John feels like everyone in the world is staring at him. Feels like _I SHAGGED MY FLATMATE'S BROTHER_ is printed across his forehead in red ink.  He walks casually to the window.  
  
“Don’t think he’ll be gone long, though,” Lestrade says vaguely, behind him somewhere. John can hear him pause. The desk drawer slides shut. “Though who can ever tell, with Sherlock?”  
  
John’s both looking forward to Sherlock’s return, and dreading it. Right now some small, childlike part of him needs everything to be _normal_ , and having Sherlock around has become Normal for him, in just the few months they’ve been flatmates. Of course, Normal is also Sherlock dashing off on a whim and leaving John behind, so he doesn’t really know why he’s put out by this latest turn of events.  
  
Plus he could really, really use the chance to tidy the flat. And perhaps shampoo the sofa. Though that would probably tell Sherlock just as much, if not more.  
  
“John?”  
  
“Hm?” John turns from the window.  
  
“You all right?”  
  
“Yeah, fine.”  
  
“You’ve gone a funny colour.” Lestrade’s expression is a distant half-cousin to the one Sherlock wears when taking John apart: Lestrade looks more confused than discerning.  
  
He shakes his head. He feels like the most transparent thing in the world. Surely Lestrade can tell... “Did you need me for anything in particular?” he asks.  
  
Lestrade gestures to a slim file sitting on his desk. “Pictures from the scene. Would you take a look?”  
  
“Anderson?” John walks to the file and opens it nonetheless. Lestrade steps away from his chair and John sits in it. Takes out the first photo.  
  
“Sherlock values your opinions,” Lestrade says. His tone is easy. John can hear him smile. “I do, too.”  
  
  
  
John stands in the middle of their flat and panics briefly. The argument that’s been going in his head all day hasn’t gotten him anywhere. If he tries to cover the signs, Sherlock will figure out why. If he doesn’t, well. It wouldn’t take the perceptive skills of the world’s only consulting detective to smell sex on the upholstery.  
  
His phone goes.  
  
 _Stop agonising._  
 _MH_  
  
John snorts and throws it at the sofa, then sighs and sits down next to it. He’s at the end where their feet had been, but it doesn’t really help. He feels it clinging to him, getting under his clothes and smothering his pores. Making him want to track Mycroft down, get him in bed or just up against a wall, and see if he can wring a few more of those beautiful, needy sounds from him. Making him wonder if he'd be able to get Mycroft off with nothing but John's mouth on his neck. Making him want to find out if there are any more places on Mycroft's body which are equally sensitive...  
  
Whatever else he does, he decides, this sofa needs to be _cleaned_.  
  
  
  
In the end he opens the windows and wills the room to air out. He rummages around the floor on his hands and knees, searching for his other sock. The sofa gets a half-hearted shampoo and hoovering. The colon in the freezer stays where it is. His mobile goes again, somewhere in the middle of it all, but he ignores it until the sock has been found and shoved into the washer with the rest of his clothes from last night. When he finally recovers the phone and pulls up the message, there are two.  
  
 _He’s on his way. ETA 1 h 18 min._  
 _MH_  
  
Sent around fifty minutes earlier. The second is from Sherlock, sent two minutes ago.  
  
 _Need: bleach, vinegar, skillet, matches.  Have ready upon arrival._  
 _SH_  
  
John stares at it.  He feels the usual mixture of anticipation at his arrival, outraged disbelief at his audacity, and that familiar affection.  
  
Another text pops up.  
  
 _Also: tea_  
 _SH_


	5. Stormy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sherlock is cross and possessive, and Mycroft nudges him in the right direction.

By the time Sherlock bursts through the door of his office and storms up to his desk, Mycroft has prepared one of his milder and more obnoxious smiles and plastered it to his face. Sherlock acknowledges it with a curled lip, a brief, unimpressed sneer. Mycroft steeples his fingers, shuts his eyes, and lets his smile grow lazier. When his brother fails to say anything, however, Mycroft opens his eyes and observes him.  
  
Sherlock is fuming quietly, eyes roaming the room, lips firmly together in an attempt to rein himself in.  
  
"Please, don't hold back on my account," Mycroft says, and Sherlock's gaze snaps back to his. Then he's moving, pacing around the room, coat swirling around him, all barely contained energy and utterly incensed. Mycroft's smile grows, for just a moment, before he pulls himself together. He sighs, folds his hands on his desk. The smile drops from his face entirely.  
  
Sherlock whirls on him, struggles for words, snaps his lips shut again for a brief moment and looks heavenward. "And on my sofa. _My sofa_ , Mycroft!"  
  
Mycroft considers for a brief quarter-second telling Sherlock that it was John who'd chosen the location—John, in fact, who'd instigated the whole thing. He then dismisses the thought. John may be a grown man who can make his own decisions, but that is not at all the point, for Mycroft is as well. Both men had gone into it as responsible adults, and John had been drinking. Mycroft is guilty enough to shoulder the blame himself.  
  
He doesn’t say any of that. What he says instead is, "I believe John cleaned it adequately?"  
  
Which is not much better, but baiting his brother is an old habit. Sherlock's hands are shaking slightly; he's itching to break something. His frustration is obvious, and understandable, and because it is understandable, there is nothing for him to say, which makes him all the more frustrated. This conversation played out between them long before Sherlock even arrived.  For Mycroft it took place in the bathroom of 221B the night before, for Sherlock, the moment he returned from France. He was bound to be annoyed, perhaps hurt, perhaps angry. That he still came all the way here, to confront Mycroft about it in person, means that he is furious.  
  
Sherlock finally controls himself and locks eyes with Mycroft, who stares back easily, face expressionless. Sherlock's dark curls are mussed; there are two spots of high colour on his cheekbones, standing out against the translucent skin. The rest of it, the mundane things that Sherlock would never be able to bring himself to say, the _why_ , the _sod you_ , the _you utter bastard_ , and Mycroft's cool dismissal of it all, sit there silently. Mycroft waits for his brother to think of something else.  
  
Finally Sherlock's expression shifts into something angry but slightly curious, and pained.  He can hardly bear the thought of what he's about to ask, can hardly believe he's going to ask it. "Well?"  
  
Mycroft raises an eyebrow in surprise, pauses, and then decides to make him work for it. "Well what?"  
  
It is successful; the pain in Sherlock's eyes vanishes and the fury is back. "You know perfectly well what," he spits.  
  
Mycroft stands, comes around the desk, stops in front of Sherlock. His brother draws himself up to his full height automatically. Mycroft still has half an inch on him. "What do you think, Sherlock?"  
  
Sherlock glares. "I think I've never hated you so much in my life."  
  
Mycroft shakes his head. "Selfish. And untrue. I'm not the only one you're angry with."  
  
Sherlock concedes the point with a tilt of his head. His eyes are bitter. "So answer my question," he snaps.  
  
This time Mycroft uses his best woolfish smile. "Well?" he repeats.  
  
"Yes, _well_?"  
  
" _Very_ well."  
  
Sherlock's face flushes, all the way to the tips of his ears. His hands fist reflexively at his sides. He glares for a moment, then steps closer. Growls succinctly, " _Mine_."  
  
Mycroft considers that. It is probably true—or, more accurately, it may very well become true. At the moment, it is not, and there are several ways this can still go. Mycroft thinks about John's wholehearted physicality, about Sherlock's general disinterest in it. About how Sherlock is _not_ uninterested in John, but how his sudden desires both confuse and frighten him and are not enough to change the habits of a lifetime, all at once. And so John is not Sherlock's yet.  
  
Technically Mycroft is still in the game. Therefore he can still manipulate it.  
  
He lifts a hand and puts it to his brother's face. The skin is unusually warm, and very smooth. The pulse beats rapidly under the tip of Mycroft's last finger. Sherlock swallows but holds his ground, jaw clenched. Mycroft slides his hand around the back of his head and into his brother's hair. Leans in so that they're almost nose to nose. Smirks and whispers, "Prove it."  
  
If that doesn't do the trick, Mycroft reflects, then nothing will.


End file.
